Prepared by:
JANET MCGRAIL

Background
During the period 1 st April 2005 to 31 st March 2006 the investigation team continued to work to the Department of Work and Pensions (SAFE) scheme. .
Incentive reward payments to the value of over £243k are expected to be claimed, (subject to final audit) this has also increased by £80k compared to the previous years payment of £163k. It was agreed in the previous business plan that a target of £125k in Incentive Reward Payments income was to be achieved and this has been greatly exceeded.
Members on the investigation team have been rewarded in accordance with the staff reward scheme during this period and members of the team are part of the directorates staff development group.
The manager of the investigation of the overpayment team continued to be
Chair of the Greater Manchester Fraud Initiative Group during part of this period, leading a group of thirteen member authorities in counter fraud activities across the region.
Allocation of Resources
The resource time available for Investigation Officers to undertake Fraud was set at 0.27 full time equivalents (fte) for year 05/06 per BVPI target 76b this was achieved with an fte of 0.32 being calculated per 1000 caseload. For the financial year 06/07 a target of 0.27 has been agreed, equating to approximately at 8fte if caseload numbers remain static. A further
Investigation Officer has been recruited to commence on the team June 2006.
The welfare visiting role has been allocated to another section therefore during 2006/07 it is anticipated there will be more investigation time due to this change.
During recent years the teams performance has been adversely affected due to several new Investigation officers joining the team at the same time during period 2003/04, the training needs of these team members is vastly reduced and performance as expected has significantly improved during the past two years. It is further expected that the impact of training a new officer will not

significantly affect performance during 2006/07. Salford Direct to provide a high quality benefit investigation service and can demonstrate this by maintaining its 100% success rate in Local Authority prosecution cases taken forward during the period.
During 2005/06 one of the Assistant Managers commenced maternity leave and the Senior Investigation Officer covered this role, however resources were not replaced in this role which lead to a reduced volume of auditing being completed compared to the previous year, however despite this in total
16% of all cases investigated were audited during the period.
During 2005/06 as reported in the previous business plan an Investigation
Officer did carry out administrative functions as a pilot scheme, however the pilot was ended after the period as the majority of Investigation Officers felt they would prefer to carry out these tasks individually.
Work Plan
The work plan is designed to embrace initiatives to promote successfully an anti fraud culture throughout the City and link to the councils pledges and the golden thread. Initiatives to be participated in include those as stated in the current anti fraud statement and other pro-active areas as detailed in the attached work profile. In considering achievements against the previous work plan of 05/06, the following observations are made:
NFI – NFI 2004 Work continued in this area during 2005/06 and the Audit
Commission also visited the council to evaluate the work done and it was agreed that a significant amount work had been completed by the team with more work still to be carried out. It is anticipated that now new work on the
NFI 2004 initiative will be generated after the first quarter of 2006/07 however work will continue on the ongoing cases. During 2005/06 8% of proven cases were as a result of NFI referrals. The next NFI Initiative is due to commence during 2006/07.
HBMS – This work was the most successful area of fraud proven during
2004/05, however during 2005/06 this was the second successful area of cases where fraud was proven with 28% proven compared with 33% during the previous period.
JOINT WORKING WITH JCP- The joint working undertaken throughout the period has lead to an increase in positive results and improved our liaison especially with collusive employer teams. Cases referred to us by JCP were the most successful type of referrals investigated during 2005/06 with 32% of all proven cases being linked with JCP referrals. However, there are still continue to be resource problems within JCP, due to their recent staffing

review which has meant resource losses and a change in some of the investigation officers that we carried out joint working with. It is anticipated that when the impact of this review is stabilized joint working will improve during the later part of the year.
CASELOAD REFERRAL ALLOCATION
– This continues to be part of our standard monitoring processes, Investigation Officer’s caseloads will be generally monitored on a 4 to 8 week basis during 2006/07.
FRAUD AWARENESS TRAINING- The annual cycle of training continues to be provided by the Benefit Investigation Team and staff trained during period
05/06 included Benefit Claims staff, both Counter and Telephone Customer
Services staff. Induction Training also includes benefit fraud training. Fraud awareness training was also conducted with GMP officers during the period continuing the link of our strategic aim of partnership working to reduce crime levels within our city. Staff awareness sessions regarding benefit fraud awareness have been scheduled for November 2006.
TRAINING
– Job related employer supported studies are actively promoted within Salford Direct; this includes staff based on the Benefit Investigation
Team. Training is given to staff on a formal and informal basis as and when required subject to the changing requirements of the section. A range of training providers continues to be sourced from internal training officers to external training organizations. All investigation officers and managers have successfully completed PINS training modules 1 to 7 and are now Accredited
Counter Fraud Officers, our view on PINS training has been previously documented and this view remains unchanged. Several Investigation Officers successfully completed other modules of PINS training during 2005/06. First
Line Management training has also commenced for the Senior Investigation
Officer and additional nominations made for this course during 2006/07.A large proportion of staff have continued with their commitment to undertaking
ECDL training during the period and other team members have commenced this training during 2005/06. Northgate training was also given to the
Investigation team, however unlike other business functions the impact of the new computer system being introduced had minimal effect on the
Investigation Teams work other than increased waiting times for claims to be reviewed. An Investigative Interviewing course will be provided for all
Investigators during 2006/07 and a request for further PINS training has also been sent to the Department of Work and Pensions in April 2006. Other training requests have been sent to the training team and are detailed in the directorates training plan for 2006/07. Greater Manchester Police as a result of our successful partnership working are scheduled to provide a days foot surveillance training during June 2006.

AUDITING
– This auditing role was successful and 188 audits were carried out during 2005/06, in excess of the DWP recommended 4%.
STAFF DEVELOPMENT- The team continued to provide staff representation on the staff development group and a session during 2006/07 will be aimed at the councils pledge of reducing crime in the city which will also include work relating to benefit fraud activities. The Appraisal process continues to take place to assist staff development and identify training requirements and to document targets during the period. Training needs are identified through appraisals processes and regular one to one meetings with staff; this is then linked to annual training plans. An appraisal plan has been developed for
2006/07, which includes all staff on the team.
DATA MATCHING – pilots took place with HBMS regarding two different areas of work and results were passed back to HBMS for them to decide whether the matching could be rolled out nationally.
The following work profile takes into account the resources available however risks to the plan being adhered to include high levels of staff absence rates, staff retention and the impact of other organisations on the business, e.g. JCP and GMP.
The work profile is flexible in its format to enable other areas of investigation work to be included if it is considered a high priority.
Details of the Investigation team planned activities for period 010406 to
310307 include the following:
NFI 2006
HBMS
JOINT WORKING
CASELOAD REFERRAL ALLOCATION
FRAUD AWARENESS TRAINING
TEAM TRAINING
AUDITING
STAFF DEVELOPMENT
TYPES OF WORK UNDERTAKEN

Salford Direct does not restrict any types of benefit investigations that are undertaken by the team subject to any investigations being taken comply with the framework of the Local Authority procedures and guidelines, including adherence to any other linked legislation including Criminal Procedure and
Investigations Act 1996, Regulation of Investigatory powers Act 2000, Data
Protection Act 1998 and PACE.
All cases referred are subjected to a set sift criteria that ensures consistency in the vetting of cases to be investigated. Cases referred for investigation are vetted by experienced officers to enable high quality referrals to be given priority. Cases are allocated to Investigation Officers that have particular expertise in different types of investigations for example the Assistant Section
Leaders deal with complex cases that may involve other types of fraud apart from benefit fraud. Certain types of cases are allocated by Assistant Section
Leaders or above as are other types of referrals requiring to be passed to an appropriate officer because of their expertise in that type of investigation e.g.
Duel Identity cases.
The number of cases it was anticipated will be accepted for investigation for the period 05/06 was 20 out of every 1000 benefit cases this equated to 800 per annum based on our caseload of approximately 30,000 cases, the actual figure for 2005/06 was 1144 cases the equivalent of 38.74 per 1000 caseload.
The BVPI target 76 (c), which has been agreed for year, equates to 800 cases per annum. The number and quality of referrals received are important.
The number of referrals continues to reduce with 763 being received during period 04/05 compared with 812 received during 04/05 however the levels of reduction are not as dramatic as in the 2003/04 year. An analysis of the source of the referrals for period 05/06 indicated 29% (45% 03/04) from
HBMS, 11% (7% 03/04) generated as a result of NFI and 11 % from anonymous information and the remaining 37% (26% 04/05) generated from other sources. Anonymous information referrals has increased during 2005/06 and this is an effect of publicity and promotion of hotlines and is further evidence to link to our communities increasing belief that benefit fraud should not be tolerated.
Salford Direct continues to adopt the full range of sanction types and prosecutions under various acts in its investigation work. These include
Formal Cautions, Administrative Penalties and prosecution for offences identified during the course of the investigation.
ESTIMATED PERFORMANCE AGAINST SANCTION SUBSIDY
Investigation Officers had been given individual SMART targets in relation to sanctions and prosecutions, however personal targets were not fully attained

It is estimated that the number of Sanction / Prosecution cases to be dealt with during the period 06/07 would be as follows with the actual for 2005/6 shown in ():
FORMAL CAUTIONS 60 (57)
ADMINISTRATIVE PENALTIES 20 (15)
PROSECUTIONS 50 (47) by all Investigation Officers due to a variety of personal and work related reasons. Despite this the team has exceeded its target for subsidy reward income for 05/06. Due to the change in the subsidy payment scheme reward income ceased to be claimed from 010406, instead the subsidy is based on a benefit caseload calculation. However SMART targets have been communicated to each Investigation Officer for period 06/07 to enable top quartile performance to be achieved 130 sanction and prosecution cases need to be completed during 2006/07, the information is based on benefit caseload therefore if caseload increases substantially during the period the figure may be reviewed.
INVESTIGATION TEAM WORK PROFILE 06/07
APRIL AUDITING CASE ALLOCATION NFI 2004
TARGETS/ TRAINING APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
MAY
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
AUDITING CASE ALLOCATION NFI 2004
JUNE
JULY
IO TRAINING
AUDITING
IO TRAINING
GMP WORK 1
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
SX3 TRAINING
APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
CASE ALLOCATION NFI 2004
GMP WORK 1 NEW STARTER TRAINING IO TRAINING
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
AUDITING
APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
CASE ALLOCATION
IO TRAINING GMP WORK 1
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
AUGUST AUDITING
IO TRAINING
SEPT AUDITING
CASE ALLOCATION
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
CASE ALLOCATION
OCT
IO TRAINING
AUDITING
IO TRAINING
GMP WORK 2
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
CASE ALLOCATION SELF DEFENCE TRAINING
GMP WORK 2 APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
HBMS
HBMS
HBMS
HBMS
HBMS
HBMS
HBMS

NOV
DEC
JAN
FEB
MAR
AUDITING
IO TRAINING
CASE ALLOCATION
GMP WORK 2 APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
AUDITING
FRAUD AWARENESS TRAINING
CASE ALLOCATION
IO TRAINING
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
AUDITING
IO TRAINING
CASE ALLOCATION NFI 2006
GMP WORK 3
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
AUDITING
APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
CASE ALLOCATION NFI 2006
IO TRAINING GMP WORK 3
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS
AUDITING
IO TRAINING
APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
CASE ALLOCATION NFI 2006
GMP WORK 3 TARGET REVIEW
SANCTIONS/PROSECUTIONS APPRISALS/ 6 MTH REVIEW
HBMS
HBMS
HBMS
HBMS
HBMS